Twelve years ago I was riding in a red van on a snowy day in Canada. It is curious that I've found my thoughts wander there on this rainy night, again in Canada and in a grey van not so different from the red one. I was quite preoccupied by coloring with the pencils that were a gift from my grandpa the year before, and blissfully ignorant of what was about to take place. So many things happened in the next moments, my mind can't help but think of everything at once.
"Gerry!" I heard my mom say with an urgency that I felt more than heard. I involuntarily lurched in my seat, and a ride I'll never forget followed: I saw the terror on my mothers face, looking from me to my dad and back again, and felt the cold, wet snow spray mine. I had a feeling of being suspended and terrifying thoughts of dying in a fire flew through my mind. Gripping my seat, I saw what can only be described as "bright" and felt power surround me. Even my six-year-old mind knew that there were forces greater than me present. At some point during our rollover roller-coaster I remember seeing billows of white and what I imagined could only be an angel fighting death for me and my family. I don't remember other details of what happened while we were in motion.
"Did that really just happen? What exactly happened anyway?" My thoughts were spinning faster than the car spinning through the air, "was that really an angel I saw? What..."
"My door is stuck I can't get out..." My mom said, interrupting my thoughts."
All the "important" details after that are hazy at best. Try as I might to remember, all I can think of is silly little things. Details only a six-year-old would care to find important.
I talked to my dad about all my Polly Pockets being scattered across the highway, and about looking for my despised snow boots that I had kicked off some time earlier. We found my boots - after we found a bottle of ketchup that had escaped the cooler somewhere during the spin - and heard my mom calling for her purse and gloves which had apparently jumped-van.
Not long after crawling out of the now totaled vehicle I found myself carried away - quite literally - by a strange man who put me in his car, wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, and placed my tiny toes, which had gotten very cold, into his warm gloves. He sat next to me for a few moments before leaving to do who knows what. I sat there bewildered about everything that had just happened, but mostly I pondered the strangeness of seeing my feet hidden inside the strange man's large gloves.
Some time later I was told that the strange man was actually an off-duty officer who had witnessed our van spin around and roll three times, before coming to rest on its wheels in the freeway median. Caused from being hit by a semi-truck, right outside where I was sitting inside the van. The big huge truck and tiny little me separated only by the metal frame. Well, that and the power of God.
All witnesses said that the three of us should have died, yet we all crawled out without so much as a broken bone.
Why God interceded for us twelve years ago, I don't know. But near death experiences can make one reexamine life and the purpose for living. Even though it happened two-thirds of my life ago, I still remember. I was too young to realize everything God did that day, but I begin to see it now. God is good and He saved my life. Given that life is a gift from him and there are things He has planned out for me to do, I want to live entirely and completely sold out for Him. Trusting Him with my life because quite honestly, it is in His hands regardless.
Blessings,
Tiffany Raye
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